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Downloaded from http://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/ on September 24, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press The Organic Composition of Carbonaceous Meteorites: The Evolutionary Story Ahead of Biochemistry Sandra Pizzarello1 and Everett Shock1,2 1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1604 2School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1404 Correspondence: [email protected] Carbon-containing meteorites provide a natural sample of the extraterrestrial organic chemistry that occurred in the solar system ahead of life’s origin on the Earth. Analyses of 40 years have shown the organic content of these meteorites to be materials as diverse as kerogen-like macromolecules and simpler soluble compounds such as amino acids and polyols. Many meteoritic molecules have identical counterpart in the biosphere and, in a primitive group of meteorites, represent the majority of their carbon. Most of the compounds in meteorites have isotopic compositions that date their formation to presolar environments and reveal a long and active cosmochemical evolution of the biogenic elements. Whether this evolution resumed on the Earth to foster biogenesis after exogenous deliveryof meteoritic and cometary materials is not known, yet, the selective abundance of biomolecule precur- sors evident in some cosmic environments and the unique L-asymmetry of some meteoritic amino acids are suggestive of their possible contribution to terrestrial molecular evolution. INTRODUCTION that fostered biogenesis. These conditions are entirely unknown because geological and Why Meteorites are Part of the Discourse biological processes of over four billion years about the Origin of Life have long eradicated any traces of early Earth’s he studies of meteorites have long been part chemistry. On the other hand, we know that Tof investigations and discussions about the life has embarked in a long evolutionary path origin of life for the reason that some of these all through its recorded history and it seems rea- extraterrestrial bodies have reached the Earth sonable to extend to its unknown beginning the containing abundant carbon since its accretion, same evolutionary nature. Albeit a posteriori provide a natural sample of abiotic organic and without knowledge of the actual chemical chemistry, and may offer insights on the possible steps that carried this evolution, therefore, the environments and physico-chemical processes single assessment one can safely make about Editors: David Deamer and Jack W. Szostak Additional Perspectives on The Origins of Life available at www.cshperspectives.org Copyright # 2010 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; all rights reserved; doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a002105 Cite this article as Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 2010;2:a002105 1 Downloaded from http://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/ on September 24, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press S. Pizzarello and E. Shock life’s origin on the Earth is that it must have been how we still find them today, joined by icy an emergent process, through which biogenic objects from more distant locations of the solar atoms and molecules gained the complex asso- system that were brought in by further dynam- ciative and interactive states we observe in even ical evolution of giant planets’ orbits (Levison the simplest forms of extant life. It is then easy to et al. 2009). With their crowding, hazardous see why the discourse about the origins of life orbits, and constant collisions, all of these bodies has been multidisciplinary, broad based, and put fragments on route to the Earth and have fostered many theories, all of which, with the done so through the ages. The importance of notable exception of the panspermia hypothesis meteorites for the study of prebiotic chemistry (e.g., Crick and Orgel 1973), accept the funda- is a result of this failed planet formation and not mental emergent nature of life from simple just for their obvious delivery but also because molecules. many of the asteroid belt objects never had their In exobiological (as well as astrobiological) composition drastically transformed by gravita- terms, it hasbeen proposed that life’sfundamen- tional high temperatures and pressures as larger tal evolutionary nature might have extended bodies did. Their meteoritic fragments, there- beyond its origin and might be rooted in the fore, may carry unaltered a pristine record of abioticcosmochemicalevolutionofthebiogenic early solar system chemistry as well as allow elements. C, H, N, O, P, and S are known to be the deciphering of its cosmic history. present as diverse and often complex organic The meteorites that best fit this description molecules in avarietyof extraterrestrial environ- are the carbonaceous chondrites (CCs), a prim- ments (Lazcano 2010) and their long cosmic itive subgroup of stony meteorites having an history has supported the idea of a possible exo- elemental composition that is very similar to biology.However,itsanalyticalbasiscomesfrom that of the Sun and the universe overall. As their the study of carbon-containing meteorites that name indicates, CCs have the distinction of con- have provided the only natural sample of chem- taining several percent amounts (1.5%–4%) ical evolution large enough for direct laboratory of carbon, which is for the most part present analyses. Uniquely, therefore, carbon containing as organic materials. These meteorites are aggre- meteorites record for us the abiotic organic gate rocks, i.e., consist mainly of a matrix made chemistry that preceded life’s origin and may as of packed together hydrous and anhydrous sili- yet reveal whether it is realistic to assume that cates that do not show signs of metamorphism these or similar materials, i.e., either by direct or alteration by high heat. However, as part of delivery or analogy of formation, might have their small planet parent bodies, CC mineralogy fostered or even inducted molecular evolution also shows that these rocks had experienced a toward biogenesis. liquid water phase as well as the effects of impact shocks. For example, a recent measurement of the optical activity of three CC surfaces (Arteaga The Early Solar System, Meteorites, and the et al. 2010) showed a circular birefringence bias Possible Survival of Cosmochemical Evolution to negative values that the authors attribute The meteorites that reach the Earth are for the to chiral fractures and distortions in the clays most part fragments of asteroids, i.e., of those following mechanical forces. The meteorites’ small planetesimals that orbit the Sun in great aggregation also captured various inclusions; number between Mars and Jupiter. By the the chondrules, to whose name CCs owe their Titius-Bode law of a regular spacing of planets classification, are round beads of glassy appear- from the Sun, their orbit should be occupied ance that have re-crystallized from a melt, i.e., by a planet; it is believed, however, that the small high heat, and bring witnesses to the variety of chunks of early solar materials reaching this area materials and processes that must have contrib- fell under the strong gravity of the already uted to CC parent bodies’ formation (Fig. 1). formed giant planets and were either scattered Overall, these meteorites do not seem to throughout or left unable to coalesce. That is differ much from terrestrial rocks, a similarity 2 Cite this article as Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 2010;2:a002105 Downloaded from http://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/ on September 24, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press The Organic Composition of Carbonaceous Meteorites obtained by X-ray microscopy of the meteorite surfaces after their exposure to selective staining with OsO4 vapors (Pearson et al. 2007). From these analyses, they appear to be broadly distributed within the matrix, intermixed with hydrous silicate components. As in other CCs, Figure 1. A CR2 meteorite stone found in the Antarctica Graves mountains (GRA 95229). The open Murchison organic materials can be broadly faces show the large chondrules that characterize this described in terms of their solubility in aqueous family of meteorites. Chondrule and other inclusion and organic solvent systems, a practical charac- abundance reduce the amount of matrix where terization that nevertheless leaves room for organics are found to about 30% of the geology. missed analytical targets and the possibility of unknowns (e.g., Deamer 1985). Insoluble and that has not helped their collection or preserva- soluble components represent respectively 70% tion because, if not seen to fall and promptly and 30% of total carbon and, within their mole- collected, they easily disappear in the environ- cular range, are both very complex and funda- ment. The Murchison meteorite was excep- mentally heterogeneous. tional in this respect because it fell at the very eve of lunar samples’ return in 1969 and was analyzed directly by NASA laboratories as a pos- Murchison Insoluble Organic Material (IOM) sible analog of those samples. One hundred The larger portion of Murchison organic carbon kilograms of this meteorite were recovered and is often referred to as kerogen-like because, like have been used in 40 years of analyses for prob- terrestrial kerogens, it is an insoluble macromo- ably the most comprehensive study of any extra- lecular material of complex composition that is terrestrial organic material to date. As a result of not known in much molecular detail; its average this focus,
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